NWA Member: Ed Don George Admitted to Organization: May 1950 Buffalo Office: 300 Main Street Phone Number: Washington 6171 (1955) NWA Member: Pedro Martinez Admitted to Organization: September 1955 Buffalo Office: 300 Main Street Rochester Office: 103 Reservoir Avenue Phone Number: Washington 6171, Washington 6172 (1955) Corporation Name: Sports Activities, Inc. This booking office sent wrestlers to Buffalo, Rochester, Brighton, Syracuse, Ithaca, Watertown, Elmira, Newark, Saratoga, Utica, and Erie, Pennsylvania. In Syracuse, George's local matchmaker was Beshara Mangin and the local promotion was called the Syracuse Wrestling Club. The Upstate New York relationship between booking agents and former wrestlers Ed Don George and Pedro Martinez was complicated. They were business partners, friends here and there, and mostly quarreled. In a letter to Sam Muchnick dated March 26, 1952, Martinez wrote that George bought him out in Rochester, and that may have been just before Martinez bought the Manhattan Booking Agency in New York City earlier that year. The main staple of the letter was the status of wrestler Johnny Barend, who Martinez explained he trained for months before Barend made his professional debut. Reportedly, George claimed ownership to Barend and that Martinez had given over rights to him, which Martinez fully denied. Martinez also wanted George to stay out of Kingston, New York, which belonged to his booking office. Around that same time, Barend wrote a letter to Muchnick, saying that he was staying affiliated with Martinez, and not George. Barend wrote: "Don George claims he made me; actually if it hadn't been for Pedro, I wouldn't have learned to work so quickly, and anything I have I owe to him." The September 4, 1954 edition of Wrestling as You Like It, a publication from Fred Kohler's promotion in Chicago, stated that Bearcat Wright had beaten Mike Paidousis for his 13-straight win in Buffalo. On February 26, 1962, National Wrestling Association President Charles W. Pian acknowledged the letter from Pedro Martinez of the Buffalo Wrestling Club at 234 Main Street which announced the suspension of Bearcat Wright (Edward N. Wright) in both Indiana and Michigan. Pian wrote, "this will serve notice that he is suspended by the National Wrestling Association of America until both suspensions are lited (sic)." Research by Tim Hornbaker |
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